Carolina Ribera, daughter of former interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Añez, held a press conference at the gates of the Miraflores Women’s Prison, where she read a handwritten letter from the former president in which she says she is going on hunger strike before the start of the trial against her.
The former interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, declared on Wednesday on hunger strike before the start of the trial against her for the case called “coup d’état II”. Here she is accused of the actions that led her to the presidency of the country during the political crisis of 2019.
” I make one of the hardest decisions of my life, today I go on hunger strike, I am desperate to see a country without justice or law, ” said Áñez in an excerpt from a handwritten letter read by her daughter Carolina Ribera on the doors of the prison in La Paz, where she has been detained for 11 months.
The trial against the former interim president is scheduled to begin this Thursday.
In the letter, the former head of State trusts that her action “will help the international community understand that justice in Bolivia belongs to Evo Morales and Luis Arce” and that “her last forces” are aimed at “demonstrating” what happened more than two years ago.
Áñez refers to former President Morales and President Arce as “machos del poder” and maintains that “they will not be able to erase from history that they committed (electoral) fraud, were found and resigned (from their positions) fleeing the country.”}
Political crisis
The political and social crisis of 2019 was unleashed after the observations to the results of the annulled elections that year that gave Morales the right to a fourth consecutive term, and the resignation of the then president, who denounced being the victim of a coup d’état.
After reading the text, Ribera said that the measure her mother has taken is due to “desperation to have justice” and that she is “very worried” about the consequences that this decision has on the health of the former interim president.
During his detention, Áñez suffered several health problems such as a crisis due to high blood pressure, depression and on one occasion he injured his arm saying that he no longer wanted to live.
Start of trial
This Thursday is scheduled to be installed in La Paz the first hearing of the trial of the case “coup d’état II, a process in which Áñez is accused of the crimes of failure to comply with duties and resolutions contrary to the Constitution for actions he took when he was second vice president of the Senate.
According to the ruling party of the country, Áñez violated the regulations of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies to put himself in constitutional succession and assume the Presidency after the resignation of Morales and other senior officials of the Executive and Legislative who were from the Movement to Socialism (MAS).
Ribera considered that this accusation is because from the government “they want to cover the truth” and are “inventing” a coup that never existed, since in 2019 “there was a vacuum of power” and that her mother was jailed” for doing her duty ” when she was a legislator.
The daughter of the former interim head of State also said that the trial that begins “is totally illegal” since it will take place virtually when ” it must be face-to-face and it must be public, “something he said is to” silence the truth “and that Áñez”cannot be heard.”
The former interim president was pre-emptively detained in March last year in the so-called “coup I” case on charges of sedition, terrorism, and conspiracy, a process that initially set a four-month and then six-month detention.
Finally, another case called “coup d’état II” was opened, for which that period was extended to six more months with accusations of non-compliance with duties and resolutions against the Constitution, which is the one for which she will be tried.